1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to the field of wheeled luggage, and in particular concerns luggage made of flexible material and having a bottom wall carrying wheels, casters or rollers. The bottom wall is divisible into two parts and the wheels or rollers are mounted respectively on each of the two parts.
The luggage can form a fold at a top wall opposite from the divisible bottom wall. The two parts of the bottom wall are preferably attachable and a closure such as a zipper, which may extend around the ends to the top, forms a flexible seam between two cooperative halves or portions. The zipper or similar closure, provides access to the interior between the cooperative halves, including at the bottom wall. This form of soft luggage is advantageously dimensioned as a full-length garment carrier for receiving unfolded, hanging garments when the two portions of the bag are unfolded. The invention is also applicable to embodiments that fold more than once upon themselves.
2. Prior Art
Luggage packing garments or clothing and the like has popularly been packed in soft-shelled luggage, i.e., having side walls formed of flexible fabric, plastic or combinations of these materials, generally with reinforcements along comer seams and at handle attachments and the like. The popularity of soft-shelled luggage is in part due to its ability to inflate or deflate in accordance with the volume of the garments and personal effects packed therein. Additionally, soft luggage is somewhat deformable, and even when fully and tightly packed, can conform to the available space for stowing in odd-shaped compartments such as overhead compartments in airplanes and the like. Soft luggage is also relatively lighter than comparable-sized hard luggage, which means less strain on owners who must carry the luggage about and hoist their luggage up into the overhead compartments.
A further development in luggage, which also is popular, is the addition of wheels or rollers permanently mounted on the luggage for rolling the luggage along a support surface. Wheeled luggage permits pedestrians to transport a greater weight of luggage across the pedestrian surface for a greater distances with less exertion than comparable luggage which must be carried (and not rolled).
It would be advantageous if soft luggage, particular relatively large garment bags, could also take advantage of wheels or rollers for obtaining the benefits of both in one article of luggage. However, prior attempts to provide a workable wheeled soft bag, especially a garment bag, have been plagued by shortcomings.
Some shortcomings of the prior art relate to the bottom wall of the soft luggage. Typically, an article of soft luggage has a soft shell forming its outer walls, which include namely side, top and bottom walls. Wheels or rollers are mounted on the bottom wall and the bag is manipulated by a handle on the opposite or top wall. For a foldable garment bag, the fact that the bottom wall is partitioned into left and right parts presents a problem. The parts can be attached, for example, by a central zipper extending across the middle of the bottom wall, i.e., between the two parts of the bag. The garment bag typically is folded such that the packed garments reside in the bag in an inverted U-shape. This forms a more convenient parcel than an unfolded full length bag, that must be carried by the user in a full length mode or folded anyway, e.g., over an arm. Full length bags are unpopular because they are difficult to carry, bulky and ill-suited to fit in overhead compartment, under a seat or like.
Assuming that a fold is needed, an inverted U-shape is preferable over an upright U-shape. An upright U-orientation would provide a continuous central bottom that could bear wheels, but is impractical because gravity pulls the end portions of the folded garments downward on one or both sides (e.g., on the side without a hanger hook), resulting in undesirable wrinkling at the bottom of the U. In an inverted U-shape, the garments are better supported at the middle, and are less inclined to bunch up in either side. A horizontal or inclined-U orientation is possible but would be impractical because the luggage is too low at the "top" wall to be conveniently manipulated by the user.
Since the most practical orientation is luggage which packs the garments in an inverted-U orientation, then that orientation defines the problem, which is a bottom wall with two portions, both having rollers, and presumably with a zipper or other closure attaching the sides and extending among the rollers.
Two wheels could be provided for partial support of the bag. For stability in standing, three or four rollers are advantageous. The rollers can be mounted on the bottom wall in a rectangular arrangement in which two rollers are mounted on the left part of the bottom wall and two other rollers are mounted on the right pan. This arrangement permits the garment carrier to be rolled in a direction with the side edges of the garments leading and trailing, with the user walking close alongside the garment carrier in convenient reach of the handle.
A truly soft shell bag has little or no shape stability, i.e., the soft shell is unable to support itself in a vertical plane. To stiffen the bottom wall of the garment carrier, the soft shell is reinforced with U-shaped gussets, one each for each of the left and right parts of the bottom wall. The wheels or rollers are fixed in a stable manner to these gussets, as the soft shell is not wholly suitable for mounting wheels. The left and right gussets are affixed to the left and right parts of the soft shell in the bottom wall, respectively. However, there is no rigid interconnection between the left and right gussets, the connection consisting of the zipper, which when closed defines a flexible seam between the left and right gussets.
This arrangement is disadvantageous because the gussets are interconnected with some freedom to pivot relative to each other about a pivot axis defined along the zipper. When the bag is lifted or caused to bear weight on the wheels, the wheels splay outwardly or inwardly, which also may occur as a function of the extent to which the bag is packed full. The gusset on one side may be higher or lower than the other. It is difficult with unstable or splayed wheels to roll the garment carrier along with generally equal distribution of the load to all four wheels. Experience shows that the two wheels on the same left or right gusset generally carry the weight while the other two wheels idle. An additional aspect of the problem is that the known garment carrier rolls forward unstably, with the user's side-to-side gait displacement tending to shift the load from one set of weight-carrying wheels to the other. At each lateral shift, the garment carrier tends to lurch away from a straight line path. The same structural deficiencies prevent the garment carrier from standing stable at rest. The garment carrier has a tendency to rock away over the pair of wheels that happen to be carrying less of the weight than the other set of wheels.